Are you struggling to establish consistent quiet time with God? Do you have the desire but struggle to come up with something that works? The truth is that without a plan we will always be inconsistent. Our Bible study will become frustrating and morph into something we do simply to check off a box to say to ourselves and to God, “Hey I’m a good Christian! I read my Bible today.” You need a plan. In this blog I want to share with you a simple 30-minute devotional that you can start applying today. Before you begin, here are a few things you need to do on the front end.  

PRE-WORK

Determine the best TIME

The best time for you may or may not be in the morning. For many people that may be when you’re most alert but it could also be the time when things are the most hectic. So just pick a time.  Put it in your calendar and set alerts or a reminder so that you are intentionally carving out time.

Determine the TYPE of study

There are all sorts of different Bible studies you can do. The key is to pick one and COMMIT to it. Below are a few suggestions.

1. 1. Read through the Bible – A great goal is to read through the entire Bible in a specific time period.
   2. Proverb of the Day – One of the quicker devotions is to read the Proverb that matches the day of the month. For example, today is October 23. Therefore you would read Proverbs 23. This is a quick and effective way to get some daily wisdom inside of you.
   3. Topical Study –Choose a topic/word (faith, fear, joy, etc.) and use a concordance to study as many uses of that word in the Bible as possible.
   4. Book study – Choose ONE book of the Bible and read a chapter from that book every day for a specific time.
   5. Character Study – Pick a character in the Bible (Joseph, David, Hannah, Esther, etc.) and read everything you can about them in the Bible. Ask God to show you how their story relates to yours. What mistakes did they make? How did God deal with their mistakes and their success? What does God want to teach you from it?

Get some TOOLS

If you are going to be effective at Bible Study you are going to have to invest in some tools. If you’re pressed financially, many of these tools can be found online at a website called Crosswalk (www.crosswalk.com). Below are a few tools you will need to get started (click on links to order from Amazon). 

1. A Good Study Bible – A study Bible usually has background information about each book to provide the right context for your study. They will have helpful study notes designed to help you better understand what you read. It will have lots of extra scriptures to cross-reference, character profiles of key individuals, maps, concordances and all sorts of other helpful tools necessary for effective Bible study. I happen to use the Life Application Study Bible and I love it! The John MacArthur Study Bible is also a great choice as well.
2. Bible Dictionary – Let’s say you’re reading the gospels and you come across a group called the Pharisees. And you’re like, “Hmmm, Jesus keeps having conflict with these guys. I’d like more information about them.” That’s when you grab your Bible dictionary and look them up and it will provide you with more background information than you probably imagined. I like Nelson’s Bible Dictionary but there are lots of these out there. 
3. Bible Commentary – This is a book written by Bible scholars where they provide helpful commentary (sometimes verse by verse) that you can read if/when you get stuck on a passage that you don’t understand. A great commentary is the Bible Knowledge Commentary. It’s extremely well-written and easy to understand. 
4. Concordance – This is a book that enables you to look up certain words so you can study the specific verses involving that particular word. The industry standard for this is Strong’s Concordance. 

Apply these TIPS

1. 1. Read from various TRANSLATIONS – Sometimes one translation will make more sense to you than others. 
   2. *Read REPEATEDLY – Read the same passage over and over again. You’ll see something different each time 🙂
   3. *Read IMAGINATIVELY – When you are reading the stories of the Bible do your best to imagine yourself in the character’s shoes. This will help the passage come to life for you.
   4. Write, Write, Write! – Write down your observations in your Bible, a journal or word processing program so you can keep track of how God is speaking to you.

THE 30-MINUTE DEVOTIONAL

Okay, so now that you’ve done the Pre-Work, it’s time to discuss the nuts and bolts of your quiet time. This is a simple guide. If God leads you to veer away from this during your time with Him then by all means follow God’s leading.

Prayer – (2 min)

Here you are doing two very quick things.

Confession

Psalm 66:18 says,

If I regard sin in my heart the Lord will not hear my prayers.

In other words, sin is the quickest thing to hinder us from hearing from God clearly. Confess and clear the path for you to hear from God clearly.

Ask for Illumination

Psalm 119:18 says,

Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things from your law.

David prayed that God would open his eyes to see the truth of God’s word. Here you are asking God to illuminate or “shine light” on His word to you. THE BIBLE IS NOT A MAGAZINE OR A TEXTBOOK. In order to understand it, it requires God’s Spirit opening your eyes to the truth. So start by saying a very short, simple prayer asking God to speak to you and to show you what He wants you to see during your time with Him.

Study – (20 minutes)

As you are reading your selected passage there are several questions you can ask that will really help you better apply what you’ve read. For a list of these 9 helpful questions, please visit an earlier blog I wrote entitled, “9 Questions that will Revolutionize Your Bible Study.” Be committed to your Pre Work! Commitment combined with realistic expectations is the key here. You are not going to have a mountaintop experience each time you open the Bible so stop expecting it. It may or may not feel warm and fuzzy. When it doesn’t, know that you are stockpiling God’s truth inside of you for the Holy Spirit to withdraw from you at a later time. With that being said, if it’s not working for you then don’t be afraid to change it up.

Prayer (9 min)

• Praise (2 min) – Here you are taking a moment to praise God for what He has done for you (health, family, provisions, career, business, success, etc.)
• Pray for others (3 min) – People ask you to pray for them ALL the time. And if we were honest, most of the time we forget to 🙂 Keep a prayer journal and spend some time praying for others. If you don’t know what to pray then pray a general prayer for them. For how to do this more effectively watch my video entitled, “The Best Prayer you can Pray for Someone.”
• Personal Requests (4 min) – This is where you get down and dirty with what you want God to do in your life At any time you should have a list of these things and pray for them daily. For more on how to do this you can watch my video entitled, “How to Pray more Effectively.”

SUMMARY

Quiet time with God does not have to be 1 hour a day. As you start with 30 minutes you will inevitably build up to spending more time because the more exciting your Bible study is the more time you’ll want to invest. Start with this simple plan today and watch God grows your understanding of His will and His word.

* From “Living by the Book” by Howard Hendricks